Will Georgia establish a run game against South Carolina?

JT Daniels finally got his number called when Mississippi State visited Athens for a night game in Sanford Stadium.

He delivered quite the statline and a victory for Georgia. 401 yards and 4 touchdowns is pretty impressive, and something that has not been done by a georgia quarterback since Aaron Murray. 

However, the victory was not without it’s shortcomings for Georgia. 

Georgia totaled just eight rushing yards. This has been largely overlooked due to all of the hype around Daniels’ performance. 

Georgia is the self-proclaimed “Running Back University,” and the Bulldogs could only squander eight rushing yards against the worst team in the SEC West.

An air-raid offense is not a winning formula in the SEC. That was proven by Mississippi State at the beginning of the season. Georgia’s identity has always been running the football and featuring multiple talented backs.

If the team can keep the passing game as prolific as it was against MSU, or at least close to that, then Georgia’s offense can be lethal. The problem is that a ground game has to be established in order to have sustained success in the offense we saw last Saturday. 

“We have to find ways to run the ball, and that’s probably the most important thing to me so we can be explosive in both ways,” Kirby Smart said. 

The likelihood that Georgia’s offensive stats from the Mississippi Stat game end up being similar against other opponents is low. Eight rushing yards seems like a fluke outcome. 

Smart makes a great point. A solid run game is going to open up more opportunities in the downfield passing game for Daniels and company. 

There just was not any room to run out of the backfield against Mississippi State, and a lot of that boils down to offensive line play. 

The bottom line is that Georgia cannot fail in the run game like they did against MSU. Daniels played well, but this was a close game throughout the entire contest, and that was not supposed to happen. 

Georgia may have another close game on the horizon if the backs can’t get going against South Carolina.